China to intensify regulations for reporters

New York, February
13, 2009--China's decision to establish a list of reporters who break
reporting rules and prevent them from continuing to report or edit news is a
cause for concern, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The decision
to create a blacklist was reported in an article on the Web site of the
official China Press andPublishing Journal.

The Journal's report, titled
"Strengthen oversight and service for journalists to protect their rights and
interests," said that the General Administration of Press and Publication, the
agency that controls the country's media, will "establish a database of media
professionals with a bad record." The rules will apply to Chinese journalists.
Foreign journalists are under the purview of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The article said the database is part of a larger plan to tighten press
credentials and set professional standards for China's reporters. New controls,
including press identification cards, will be put into effect starting on
February 25 and be in place by June 2009.

"We are alarmed by any government that attempts to decide who is a 'good'
journalist and who is a 'bad' journalist," said Bob Dietz, CPJ's Asia program coordinator.

"Media in post-Olympics China
have come under more restrictions since the Games ended in August 2008. We hope
the government does not use the legitimate desire to improve the integrity of
media in China
to continue its crackdown on reporting that is critical of the government,"
Dietz said.

The new regulations came to light after an announcement on February 6 that Hong
Kong and Macau journalists are required to apply for a press pass from the
central government and get interviewees' consent before every reporting trip to
the mainland--two restrictions that had been eased for reporters as part of the
government's efforts to meet its pledges for a free media for the Beijing
Olympics. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the less restrictive rules
permanent in October 2008. CPJ
expressed its skepticism about the ruling at that time.

Blacklisting journalists has a long history in China. Veteran Chinese journalist
Jiang Weiping told
CPJ in an interview in Toronto
on Monday that he had tried working as a journalist after his release from
prison in 2006. He served five years in jail on vague anti-state charges after
reporting on a corruption scandal in Liaoning
province for a Hong Kong-based newspaper. Jiang said he had succeeded in being
hired and given a journalist's permit by the Zhuhai bureau of Hong Kong
newspaper Ta Kung Pao--a permit that was
revoked as soon as a background check revealed his criminal record.

Corrupt reporters are a
serious problem in China's
rapidly expanding media universe, and have at times undermined the public's
trust in journalists. In
August 2007, a television producer was jailed for one year after
fabricating a story about steamed buns filled with cardboard. And
in January 2007, a young reporter was beaten to death at an illegal coal
mine--owners said he had tired to extort money from them. But legitimate journalists
who report critically on the government are often charged with corruption, too.

The new rules do not apply to foreign journalists, but in
November 2007, CPJ warned that the government's crackdown on so-called
"fake" foreign journalists in advance of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was a
pretext to block critical reporters from covering the Games. While more than
20,000 foreign journalists were allowed to cover the Games, many others were
never issued journalists visas to attend.